He blinked, and she could not help but envy his thick, dark eyelashes as they swept down and briefly hid those disturbing eyes.
“Thirsty,” he replied, his voice guarded.
Charity supposed he was bound to feel rather out of sorts and peculiar after such a tumble. She put the cloth down, reached for the water, and poured him a fresh glass. As she had before, she raised his head with her arm before placing the glass to his lips. He drank the glass dry but refused a second and closed his eyes as she settled him back against the pillows.
“How does your head feel?” she asked, her heart beating a little faster as getting answers to her questions became a possibility. Then she remembered how he’d landed here, and anxiety spiked in her chest. What if he remembered too, and blamed poor little John?
“Like a horse kicked it. Repeatedly,” he added, somewhat terse. “What happened?”
“Y-You fell,” Charity said, praying God forgive her for not being entirely truthful. “I expect a rabbit or something startled your horse and you lost control. You hit your head on a rock when you fell.”
A contemptuous look swept over his face and his gaze grew cold. “Nonsense. I’m an excellent rider.”
Charity opened and closed her mouth in surprise, a little taken aback. “Well, nonetheless, you did fall and hit your head.”
As if to confirm her words he raised his hand, fingers touching the dressing that wrapped around his head. He grimaced.
“How long?” he demanded, frowning.
“Three days ago,” Charity said.
His frown deepened but he said nothing, staring around the room with increasing confusion.
“Where the devil am I?” His breathing grew rough and he moved to sit up, trying to use his bruised arm to lever himself and exclaiming with pain as he discovered the injury.
“It’s all right,” Charity said, keeping her voice calm. “You’re safe. You’re at Brasted Farm, though what on earth you were doing out here we have no idea. We’re miles from anyone.”
“Brasted Farm,” he repeated, his breathing still heavy as he shook his head. “I don’t remember. I don’t know….”
“Well, don’t fret over it.” She smiled, hoping to chase the fear from his expression. “Let’s start with an easy one. I’m Charity Kendall, and whom do I have the pleasure of addressing?”
To her dismay, the terror and confusion on his face only grew. His eyes widened as he took a deep breath before replying.
“I don’t know.”
***
Baxter shook his head and took the clay pipe from his mouth. He blew a cloud of smoke into the room and narrowed his, wagging the pipe stem to punctuate each word.
“Fellow’s up to no good. Too smoky by half, he is. Don’t believe a word. Hah, can’t remember who he is? Don’t want to, more like.”
Charity ignored the voice of doom in the corner and turned to Kit. He was staring into space, a rapt expression on his face.
“How strange,” he said, looking rather intrigued by the prospect. “Imagine, waking up one day and not having the faintest idea who you were. All your worries, responsibilities… all gone.”
With a snort, Charity folded her arms and glowered a little. “Well, you needn’t sound so envious,” she said, her manner tart and rather irritated. “I’m sure we all know you’d rather be elsewhere than here, but what shall we do about him?”
Kit returned a reproachful look but gave a shrug. “What in blue blazes can we do? Uncle Edward said head wounds can do peculiar things to a fellow. Well, here’s your proof.”
Mr Baxter snorted, muttering under his breath, relishing the misfortune they were about to bring down on their heads by not heeding his advice and throwing the unfortunate fellow out onto the moors.
Charity sent him an impatient glare and turned back to Kit. “But there might be people worrying about him. For all we know there’s a search party out looking now.”
“And?” Kit demanded, reaching for the book he’d been reading before she’d interrupted him. “What of it? If there is they’ll get here, eventually.” He flicked through the pages to find his place and then sighed as Charity kept her gaze on him. “Oh, very well. We’ll make enquiries. It will mean going into town though.”
“As if you mind,” Charity said with a snort. Getting out of the house and among any kind of civilisation was Kit’s idea of heaven. The only reasons he stayed in this out of the way place were sincere attachment to his family and the conviction that a poet ought to lead a solitary and difficult life to feed his muse… or some such nonsense. Charity wasn’t sure to which reason he gave the most credence.
Kit grinned, nodding. “True enough. I’m starved of intelligent conversation. Not that I’ll find much in such a backwater as Tillforth but still.” He dropped his book to the floor to save himself from the cushion she lanced in his direction.
“Intelligent conversation my eye,” Charity retorted, nettled, even though Kit was laughing now, and she knew he’d said it on purpose to rile her. “Drinking too much and acting the fool with that other young buck you call friend, I’ll wager.” With a dignified sniff of displeasure, she turned her back on him and returned to her sewing while he chuckled and picked up his book, unrepentant. Ah… brothers.
***
“I’ve brought you some lunch. Oh!” Charity looked around in surprise as she discovered the bed empty and their mystery guest standing at the window.
She’d known he was a big man, but somehow seeing him standing in their little guest bedroom brought it home with some force. He was tall, with broad shoulders and long legs. All lean muscle and an air of restless energy that clung to him. She felt he was a man who hated to be idle, and bored easily. Kit had lent him a clean shirt as his had been bloodstained but the stranger was broader, and the material stretched tight across his back.
He’d been quiet the last few days and she imagined the unpleasant sensation of not knowing who he was had cast him adrift, leaving him unsettled and anxious. She suspected he was not a man who was neither meek nor docile; those cold blue eyes told her as much. Inevitably, his true nature must show itself sooner or later and—from the rigid set of his shoulders and the look on his face–perhaps today was that day.
“If it’s more bread and cheese, please don’t trouble yourself,” he said, with a dark timbre.
“It is,” Charity said, placing the tray on the bed. “With some good pickle and a slice of apple pie.”
He made a sound of disgust and Charity’s temper flared. “This is not a wealthy household, Mr whoever you are,” she snapped. “We live simply here, and you are eating into our supplies. One might think you’d be grateful to be fed at all.”
“Might one?” he retorted with contempt. “And where is here?” Charity folded her arms, wondering if he was used to people crumbling and running away from him when he glared at them so fiercely. “I’ve told you that. Kit even showed you on the map. It’s not our fault you don’t remember anything about where you were or what you were doing here.”
She watched as he let out a breath, staring out of the window at a landscape that seemed to stir no memories for him.
“Do you remember nothing at all?” she asked, wishing to help him if only to get him out from under her roof. He was an unsettling presence and Mr Baxter’s dark prophecies about him seemed to fall a little too close to home. “What did your home look like? Do you have brothers or sisters… a wife?”
This last question hung in the air and Charity wished she could take it back lest he believed she was interested in the answer.
He turned back to her, a mocking glint to his gaze that suggested that was exactly how he’d interpreted it.
“I’m not married,” he said, amusement lacing a voice that was decidedly upper class. “That much I’m sure of.” He paused, his face growing darker. “I… I don’t think I have any family.”
Charity felt her sympathies rise despite her irritation. To be alone in the world would be hard ind
eed. She took a step closer to him. “How can you be sure?”
“I can’t, damn you!” he shouted, making Charity flinch at the fury of his words. He sucked in a breath and clenched his fists. “I can’t even remember my name,” he said through clenched teeth. “So how can I be sure of anything? I only know what I feel to be true.”
Charity glared at him. She was always ready to help someone in distress, to do what she could to make another’s lot easier to bear, but never had she found someone so ungrateful for her efforts.
“Well, sir. Your lunch is there. Eat it or don’t, but remember you take the food from our mouths. I’ll bid you good day.” She turned and stalked from the room, only just resisting the urge to slam the door on her way out.
In future she’d let Mr Baxter deal with the blasted fellow, as Kit had wanted. Charity turned and stomped back down the stairs, resolving to put the thankless man from her mind.
***
Dev watched the young woman as her eyes flashed with temper. She bade him good day with much the same tone as she might send him to the devil, and he admitted to a surge of satisfaction. Riling her was the only interesting part of his day.
Giving the tray she’d placed on his bed a look of disgust, he laid down beside it. He felt as weak as a kitten, and standing made his head throb in time with the deep bruising on his shoulder and arm. Added to his physical condition, the fear he might never come to his senses lingered and nauseated him. He glared around the small room with disgust. Whoever he was, he knew this kind of living was not what he was used to. The coarse bread and plain fare they had served him was dull and unfamiliar. A look at the clothes he’d been wearing when they’d found him was enough to consolidate this theory. So, he was rich and powerful. The certainty that he was accustomed to being obeyed without question was a truth he wasn’t about to deny.
He cursed out loud, the obscenity lingering in the quiet of the room. If he had to spend much more time here he’d lose what was left of his mind. Bored beyond belief, he found himself irritated, restless, and yet without enough energy to even stand for over ten minutes. He rather wished Miss Kendall would come back and pick a fight with him. At least it relieved the endless hours.
Dev glowered at the tray on the bed as his stomach made a sound of protest. Reasoning that some food would settle his stomach, he reached for a slice of the coarse brown bread and the generous slab of cheese. He dipped the cheese into the pickle and took a bite, chewing and scowling at the same time. Beggars could not be choosers and, for now at least, he was a beggar. The idea did not make him feel better.
He turned his thoughts back to Miss Kendall and considered her, as there was little else to occupy him. She was attractive, in a simple and rather rustic manner. Tanned from working outside, her cheeks glowed with ruddy good health. He knew there were calluses on her hands as he’d felt them upon his skin when she’d raised his head to drink. She would find ridicule if set amongst the females of the ton. Those ladies with fine, porcelain complexions that never saw the sun and hands as soft as downy feathers, would look at her in disgust. He grinned as he imagined Miss Kendall’s words if he suggested as much. He’d see those dark eyes flash with fury again, that was for sure. She’d been desperate to tear him off a strip earlier, to tell him exactly what she was thinking. Strange to say it, but he’d been rather disappointed she hadn’t. He would have to try harder next time.
He was not to get the opportunity. She did not reappear to remove his tray, nor to bring his dinner. Instead, her brother came. He’d learned that they were twins, which was not at all obvious. Though they shared the same thick, dark hair and darker brown eyes, Kit had none of the robust good looks of his sister. He was as tall as Dev but finer in build; slender in fact. He was handsome for sure, with the kind of pale skin, flushed cheeks and bright eyes Dev had seen before. Consumption, then. He cut a rather rakish, romantic figure: a man that women would pine for, if given half a chance. Dev wondered why in the name of God he’d buried himself here in the middle of nowhere. Even without a penny to his name, the fellow could live a pleasant life in town under the patronage of some wealthy widow.
Then, to his revulsion, he’d discovered the fellow was a poet. A poet! Good Lord, he’d have women swooning at his feet if they discovered that on top of his romantic looks.
Dev had never been one for book. He had found his talents at school lay in physical activity, and he regarded intellectuals of any flavour with deep suspicion. From the guarded and distrustful narrowing in young Mr Kendall’s eyes when he called, the feeling was mutual.
So, Dev spent the next few days alone, sleeping, and eating such rustic fare as they bestowed upon him. He hoped to restore his strength and escape with all haste… until one afternoon, when a small boy poked his head around the door.
“Hello,” the boy said, a nervous expression on his tanned, freckled face.
“Hello to you,” Dev replied, scowling, wondering if they would force him to play nursemaid now. “What do you want?”
The boy edged into the room, a thin wooden box clasped in his hands. “Nothing, only I remember how bored I was last year when I was sick and… well, no one else seems to like you, so I thought you might like a game of dominoes?”
Dev’s eyebrows shot up and he gave a bark of laughter. The boy’s honesty amused him, not that he’d imagined anything else to be true. The household believed him a damned nuisance and he thought them beneath him. It was hardly a secret. Still, the boy had a point. He was bored out of his mind.
“Why not,” Dev replied, gesturing to the small table pushed against one wall with a single chair beside.
The boy shot him a grin and between them they moved the table closer to the bed.
“I’m John,” the boy informed him as he drew up the chair and Dev sat opposite on the edge of the bed. “Pleased to meet you…?” He held out his hand, leaving a gap for Dev to supply his name.
Dev sent him a dark look and the boy flushed.
“Oh, yes. I forgot. Is it very odd, to not know your name?”
“What do you think?” Dev demanded, rolling up his shirt sleeves. “And if you intend on asking fool questions all afternoon, you can take your dominoes and find the door.”
“Goodness, you are rude,” John said, wide eyed and rather impressed if his expression was anything to go on. “Charity would clip my ear if I dared speak like that.”
Dev’s chuckle rumbled around the room. “Do you think she’ll clip mine too?”
“I should say so,” John replied, his young face earnest. “She hates rudeness above all things.”
The idea of the young woman trying such a thing made Dev grin. Oh, he’d like to see her make the attempt. “Well, we shall never know, as your sister is clearly too frightened to face me again.”
This time it was John’s startled laughter that rang out as he lifted his gaze to Dev’s in astonishment. “Charity? Frightened?” He stopped laying out the dominoes, his eyes alight with mirth. “Sir,” he said, his voice grave though his lips twitched still. “You surely do not know my sister.”
Chapter 4
“Wherein the devil makes work for idle hands.”
John came again the next afternoon. Bored with dominoes, Dev decided it was time the young fellow learned a real game and taught him to play whist instead even though it was normally a four person game. He also persuaded the boy to bring him a bottle of claret. John confided to him that Kit would tan his hide when he discovered it missing as it had been a present from their uncle. Dev assured him it was worth the sacrifice. It wasn’t the best quality of course, certainly not what Dev was used to, but at this point anything of an alcoholic nature was welcome.
At Dev’s insistence John also hunted down a button box and Dev assigned the larger coat buttons as guineas, the mother-of-pearl buttons as crowns, and the smaller, ebony buttons as a shilling a piece.
By the end of the afternoon John owed him almost fifty guineas.
“Bother,” John said, c
asting his cards on the table in disgust.
Dev rolled his eyes. “Come, come,” he said, disapprovingly. “You’re up to your neck in the river tick, your pockets to let, surely you can do better than that?”
John frowned, perplexed, as Dev gathered the cards up again. “Sir?” he queried.
“A young man ought to cuss with confidence,” he said, shaking his head in dismay at the boy’s lacking education. “Enough to make the devil blush,” he added, enjoying the way John’s eyes widened in awe. “At the very least a loss like that deserved a hell and damnation.”
John’s mouth dropped open and he gaped at Dev. “Charity would have my hide if I even dared—”
Dev snorted, narrowing his gaze at the young man. “What are you, a man or a mouse? Are you going to let a woman tell you what you can and can’t say?”
To Dev’s surprise, John did not give an indignant reply as he might have expected, but pondered the question.
“If it were any other woman, I’d say you have a point, sir,” he said, watching as Dev dealt a fresh hand. “But Charity….”
He sounded doubtful and Dev could not help but laugh.
“By God, the woman rules the roost with a rod of iron, does she not?”
“Oh no, sir,” John said, quick to defend his sister. “Charity isn’t at all like that, only she says manners and respect for others are the defining quality of any gentleman.”
Dev picked up his hand but gave the boy a curious look. “Does she now?”
John nodded, reaching for his own cards. “Yes, sir.”
“What happened to your parents?” Dev asked, curious how Miss Kendall and her older brother found themselves acting as parents to two younger siblings.
“Dead, sir,” John replied, matter-of-factly with his eyes on his cards.
“I gathered that much,” Dev replied impatiently. “Dead how?”
“Oh.” John looked up, clearly unused to such direct questions about a subject Dev suspected most people tiptoed around. Tiptoeing was not in his nature. “Consumption,” he said, returning his attention to his cards.
Charity and The Devil (Rogues and Gentlemen Book 11) Page 3